Thursday, August 01, 2013
A federal jury in Virginia is set to begin deliberating whether to give three Somali pirates the death penalty.
The men were convicted in the 2011 shooting deaths of four
Americans aboard their yacht off the coast of Africa. The yacht’s
owners, Jean and Scott Adam of Marina del Rey, Calif., and their
friends, Bob Riggle and Phyllis Macay of Seattle, were killed several
days after they were taken hostage at sea. The pirates originally wanted
to bring the Americans to Somalia to ransom for millions of dollars.
Earlier this month, the jury found the Somalis guilty of 22 crimes that
are eligible for the death penalty. The jury will start deciding whether
to give the men the death penalty or a sentence of life in prison
beginning Thursday.